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The last 5 years or so I've not really read any long form fiction. I am going to attempt to get back into the habit though I suspect I will lose interest before I manage to read a full novel. It's strange because from teenage years until I was maybe 30 I read novels regularly and enjoyed them. I...

It's only a few wee sections but it's there.

I really liked it in spite of this element and it seems it is presumably deliberately illustrative of the protagonist's immaturity as much as anything else that he is wondering about whether these tweens have had the ride or not.

Did you read it? He's on about wanting to ride his 13 and 14 year old neighbours and the character (clearly based on the author himself) is 28.

Recently read Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh and I found parts of it hilarious despite the author/protagonist being a bit of a total nonce. It also gave me insight into how people in rural Ireland of my parents' time and before were constrained by social expectations and saving face. It is not...

Read an interview with an Anglican bishop one time and he said that his work now was mainly "hatches, matches and dispatches."

This book is fun. You'd read it in an hour. It gives a run through of pop art up to the early '70s. It contains loads of colour reproductions of the works for reference. I HATED pop art when I was younger but I have come to see the merit in a lot of it although I am still not entirely convinced...

Ireland In The Twentieth Century - John A. Murphy Fairly readable concise wee book covering Ireland up to around about 1970.

I read that years ago, enjoyed it but barely remember anything about it.

Benedict Kiely did a book that was like a travelogue of Ireland with poems, prose, and poetry. It was pretty good.

Wow, that is right up my boreen.

Reading A Belfast Anthology compiled by Patricia Craig. It's a hefty book but perfect for commute as it consists of poetry and short excerpts from fiction and factual stuff about Belfast. Perfect for dipping into. It's beautifully presented and there are some laugh-out-loud as well as...

Still dipping into Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies. It is patchy. Some parts are very compelling but I find a lot of the mediaeval continental sections hard to parse, too ignorant of context I suppose. Here's a review from the Grauniad: Vanished...

I've only read On The Beach.

Life needs trigger warnings. Bad shit happens all the time.

I'm still tackling The Heretics by Will Storr. I found it immensely enjoyable. Very much in the Jon Ronson mould but I think transcends that to a degree. Storr gives you a lot of food for thought while remaining fantastically readable throughout. Got another 100 pages to go but going give...

Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. This is a short enough memoir of a childhood growing up in Zimbabwe(then white minority rule Rhodesia), Malawi, and Zambia. It's beautifully written and deals with some difficult subject matter, abuse, infant death, war, poverty, and the...

Amount of customers who have asked for "A Kestral for a K-nave" over the years. It's like "My Octopus Complex" by Frank O'Connor. The worst one was "The Lion At School" being "The Lee-on at school".

Well I settled for Typical Bryson, very readable but you wouldn't want to take everything he writes as 100% truth or anything.

I haven't read a proper novel in ages I must pick one out in work today. It's a pain trying not to break the spine though.